What do you think of other Ancient Flood stories and the Bible?

So I made a video exploring the relationship between other ancient flood stories with boats and animals, to the one we all know Noah's Ark.

What are you're thoughts on the topic?


Atrahasis and Gilgamesh both have similarities to Noah's Ark, and scholars agree were written down before Genesis was. Here's my take in the video:
I think the writers of Genesis were aware of these other flood stories, and actually used the similar details as a way of rebutting the theology of Babylon and Assyria who surrounded them. Its a way of saying "God is not like the gods of Babylon". Because in Noah's Ark God actually cares about humanity, but in Atrahasis and Gilgamesh the humans are just a burden to the gods.

Would love your feedback? What do you think about the points in the video?

Edit: I just want to be clear upfront, for me this has nothing to do with whether the flood happened or not for real, just the similarities in the stories.

I think it amazes me how such old subjects continue to pop up. I rememeber this same question (and other similar) when I was young. Churches are in desperate need to have classes that cover a variety of these subjects.

It would seem that all the races after spreading out remembered a similar event that the fathers of all the races experienced, but through the course of time and their God and their fathers being forgotten about, that particular things were added or taken away or retooled to fit the particular ancient race, though the central plot of a flood wiping out the earth remained.

I think they are ancient.

Yeah I mean I looked at this in Bible College in maybe 2012, but people in the pews still talk/ask about it. Many Christians I know aren't even aware of alternate views.

Yeah, different perspectives and traditions of the same event. I'm going with the belief that the Hebrew writers got it most correctly recorded, regardless of who may have written their accounts previously. But then, I'm a simple kind of Occam's Razor guy.

I believe the account of the Bible, and God said He identifies Himself as the one true God by showing us the end from the beginning which He showed us the whole history of mankind, and said no other person or religion would be able to do that.

I do not know of other stories about the flood, but they would of taken it from the Bible for other nations, and religions tend to do that, or from Noah and his family and it passed down.

There was not a flood before Noah's flood to give account, and there was only one flood in history, so it would come after the fact of the flood for at the flood all people were wiped out except Noah and his family, 8 people, so they would not know of the flood, so it would of passed from them when the nations were divided by Noah's 3 sons, and their wives, so that is how they would know.

And how do they know how long ago they would of written about it, and that is was written before Moses wrote of the flood, and all people were gone except Noah and his family which they would give an account of it.

Also in the account in the Bible the nations were not yet divided in to the nations before the flood, so there were no nations, and kingdoms as of yet to give such an account of a flood prior to Noah's flood.

Assyria and Babylon had not even been a kingdom yet before the flood.

It was at the tower of Babel that came after the flood that God confounded their language, and they separated were scattered and the nations came about, for they were stalemating God's plan for them to replenish the earth.

Also out of Ham, Shem, and Jepheth, came all the different skin colors, which is more than 3 skin colors, and out of Ham came Africans, and Babylonians, and out of Jepheth the Caucasians, and out of Shem the Middle Easterns.

But that leaves red and yellow skin left which would have to come for them, so more than one skin color came from the sons.

So God probably changed their DNA when He confounded their language for the different skin colors to divide them in the nations, which this happened after the flood account in the Bible, and not before it.

So there was no Babylon and Assyria before the flood account in the Bible.

That is if a person believes the account of the Bible, and I believe it was passed down from Noah and that is how they knew, and then other cultures decided they wanted to copy the account of the Bible, which would come from Noah and his family, and told by Moses.

Because in reality, and the truth, and all that is holy, it is people that do not follow the Bible, and the God of Israel, that copy His word, and their account, and not the other way around.

Isa 41:21 Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.
Isa 41:22 Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.

Isa 41:26 Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words.
Isa 41:28 For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.

God already told us the whole history of mankind, and said no other person will be able to do the same, so I am believing God's account of the flood, for the word of God tells us of Him, and creation, and the flood, and the nations being divided, and the nation of Israel coming about, and so forth until the time now, and for the future.

But the world would like to say that the Bible copied stories of other religions, and people, to discredit them, especially at this time when the world is going away from God, which He said they will rebel against Him one day when the nations come together and are giving heed to the new age movement.

Which God warns us of the new age movement that will occur at the latter times which is now, and their false interpretation of the Bible based on the occult, and evolution, and people are still evolving to be greater and spiritual provided by the New Age Christ.

Which the New Age Christ will establish peace in the Middle East between Jews and Palestinians, and then work as a man of peace in the world, and push the new age movement in the world to prepare the world to accept him when he claims to be God by evolving through nature, and there is no personal God.

Which science is making ridiculous claims of things they can never know, and discover, to try to make evolution appear true, and the Bible account seem false, which God said do not believe science so falsely called.

It is all part of the deception today to support evolution, and discredit the Bible, and there is a God.

Did the Bible get this story from other religions, or people, but they did not, for the Bible says none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand, so those that would try to discredit the Bible do not know about what the Bible is saying concerning this time frame, and are doing and believing how God said they would do.

The new age movement is the future for this world, and God already told us about it, and the man of sin who will claim to be God and go against all people that oppose him.

But God is allowing him to do it so He can end sin on earth.

Jesus said there would be much deception at the end time, so they will want to discredit the Bible.

Why do you think they took prayer out of school and started teaching evolution, and science confirms it, for that is their religion in the future.

Everyone that does not want to believe in the God of the Bible, and follow Him, will follow the New Age Christ and will not be able to resist it.

I’ve never heard of these other accounts, thank you for sharing, and I give a A+ on the presentation was a nice video, I look forward to seeing more.

Thank you very much for checking out the video. I'm going to be making some more deep dive into Theology videos like this so thanks for your support.

Hello Lachlan, that's only possible if Genesis was written by someone who lived hundreds of years after Moses died. If the Bible is correct however, and Moses is the human author of the Torah, then the original Flood story came from Genesis.

Question, you said "scholars agree" with this opinion (that the Noah flood story was borrowed from Atrahasis and Gilgamesh*). I own a number of commentaries on the book of Genesis from Christian scholars, both ancient and contemporary, and none of them agree with this idea* (though some of them mention it).

Who are the scholars that you are referring to?

Thanks!

~Deut

If memory serves, I have read that there are over 600 flood stories found in the culture, legends, myths of peoples on every continent of the world. But I would stick with the story Moses wrote in the inspired Word of God.

Heb 1:1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, . . .

After the flood, there were 8 humans who were eye witnesses but also elect angels, fallen angels, and the ruler of this world Satan.
Satan and the fallen angels might have a reason to create distorted or alternate versions of the true story for there own purposes. After all, Satan's is the great deceiver and the enemy of God.

I think it proves many cultures knew the flood story from Noah was true but this pinpoints it to Jesus back to Adam that the Hebrew is the true story

Sure, thanks for taking the time to reply. Well you're right certainly some traditions of the Christian faith hold that Moses wrote the Torah.

I think most modern Christian scholars would argue that even if he wrote large sections of it, it was passed down and edited and expanded upon and put together by other schools of Priests (for example there are names of places and words used in Genesis that didn't exist until centuries later, plus there is a record of Moses's death, he couldn't have written that himself).

That said, even if Moses wrote the final form as we have in our Bibles (A claim I personally don't think is reasonable given some of the above evidence) - then that dating would be between 1500-1200BCE depending on when you think Moses lived (I should note most scholars put the final form of Genesis way later at around 500BCE). Atrahasis and Gilgamesh were both first written in around 1800-1700 BCE. My claim isn't about the dating of any historical flood, its simply about the dating of the literary story.

As for Genesis and its relationship to Other Flood stories. I just want to prefice: I am NOT saying the Bible simply BORROWED from these other stories. As I argue in the video: I am saying that Noah's Ark is a REBUTTAL to the worldview of Babylonian and Assyrian ancient flood stories. The scholars I'm thinking of who argue this idea are people like:

• John Walton (See the lost world of Genesis).
• Tremper Longman III (see How to Read Genesis).
• Also Claus Westermann who is one of the most influential Christian Scholars on Genesis, see his commentary.
• Gordon Wenham also quotes A. Heidel (see Gilgamesh and OT Parallels).

That's a few of the more influential voices in scholarship, hope it helps

For me personally, it doesn't matter for my faith if the real Moses wrote, some/all or even none of the Torah. The Bible as we have it the Canonical scripture and its message and teachings transcend whoever wrote it. But I do beleive God gave us critical thinking skills to help understand the message in its original context and so we can make use of history/archeology etc to inform our understanding of the Bible message.

Yeah absolutely, gotta have good sources.

So apart from the British museum tablet which you are correct is 7th Century BCE, they also have some Old Babylonian Tablets which they estimate at 18th Century BCE. See Campbell Thompson's introduction in: The Epic of Gilgamesh - Old Babylonian and Standard versions (Illustrated) By R. Campbell Thompson

Also I'm thinking of Andrew George's introduction in his translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin books).

Similar deal for Atrahasis, yes there are some late Tablets in Museums, but there are also Old Babylonian versions.

Thank you, I understood where you were coming from (concerning the literary dating), and I will take a look at who these men are and what they have to say, and why.

For what its worth, the scholar I look to before all others (concerning both the story of the Flood, as well the authorship of the Torah by Moses), is the One who has personal knowledge of both (and who, in fact, confirmed them both in the NT), the Lord Himself. So when certain contemporary scholars bring either one or both into question, I obviously have a problem with them from the get-go.

I remain open-minded however and am always interested to see what they have to say. If I find anything particularly interesting from one or more of the men you mentioned above, I will let you know

~Deut

Well thank you for taking the time to explore/engage!

Thank you for presenting what you believe for us to consider, and compliments on your interesting and VERY well done video , so thank you for posting that for us as well.

BTW, the narrator in the video is excellent (charismatic/engaging). Is that you by any chance?

Thanks!

~Deut

Thank you very much. Yes it is me. I worked in content marketing before studying Theology. I now have a research position in Biblical Studies and am hoping to create more engaging content that brings up to date Biblical scholarship to a broader audience.

They have found great flood stories all over the world in China, North America and South America.. This should not be surprising to Christians because we know from the OT that the populations of the world where divided after the flood when they gathered together to build the tower of Babel.. So when these people where separated and dispersed all over the world they would have taken stories of the flood with then and those stories would have passed down through oral tradition from generation to generation and would have slowly changed to have a local flavor to them.. All these stories of a great flood all over the world is actual evidence supporting the Biblical claim that there was once a great flood..

As for older and younger stories.. Just because a story was put down in writing before another does not mean the story was older.. many of these stories as i said above where passed down by word of mouth .. maybe for many generations before they where put into writing.. What we Bible believers believe is that God inspired the writers of the Genesis account to give an accurate story of the actual flood while other traditions wrote stories inspired by the real event but that became altered over the centuries and thus inaccurate..